about/contact
Digital Audio Insider is David Harrell's blog about the economics of music and other digital content. I write from
the perspective of a musican who has self-released four albums with the indie rock band the Layaways.

My
personal website has links to my LinkedIn and Google+ pages and you can send e-mail to david [at] thelayaways [dot] com.

As far as I know, Rdio is the only music streaming/subscription service that has reached out to artists with an affiliate program that makes payments when an artist refers new customers to the service. Yet it's certainly not the only music service that pays referral fees. The MOG streaming service pays a $5 bounty when a referred trial subscriber converts to paid. And eMusic's affiliate program is even more generous. It doesn't even require a paid subscription, as it pays a $6 referral fee for every trial subscription that is referred by a website, no purchase necessary.

One quibble with New York Magazine's "Music's New Math" piece: the breakdown of CD sales vs. digital and streaming sales seems completely off, at least at the lowest level. The table for the DIY band shows CD sales of 500 discs, but only 200 downloads and 200 song streams of the tracks from the album. If you're selling 500 discs (and have any sort of online presence), your music will be streamed more than 200 times. Also see the longer magazine piece on Grizzly Bear. (Thanks to Aaron for the link!)